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City officials announced on Wednesday that crime rates are dropping citywide. Photo courtesy of the NYPD.

By Jonathan Sperling

Citywide crime is continuing its historic drop in 2018 following a record-setting October, according to statistics released by the NYPD on Wednesday.

Year-to-date overall crimes are down -1.4% this year, representing 1,149 fewer victims and putting the city on track to drop below 97,000 total index crimes by the end of 2018.

“As we near the end of 2018, I am very optimistic about where we find ourselves,” NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in a statement. “Cops and the people we serve are working together better than ever. And the NYPD and our law enforcement partners at the local, state, and federal levels are working in tandem more effectively than at any time in our history. We will never lose focus of our primary mission: fighting crime and keeping people safe. And we know that all New Yorkers, in every neighborhood, always need to feel safe, too – that’s really our ultimate goal.”

This October experienced the least amount of reported crimes of any previous October recorded during the modern Compstat era. The month was also notable for not having a single reported shooting during a three-day weekend — Oct. 12 to Oct. 14 — the first time this feat has occurred in a quarter-century.

Overall, murders in the month of October 2018 are down from 29 to 17, or 41.4 percent, compared to October 2017. Reports of shooting incidents also decreased — from 73 to 68, or 6.8 percent — compared to this time last year.

Even more drastic is the comparison between 2018 and the beginning of the Compstat era; overall crime for October is down nearly 70 percent compared to the same time period in 1995.

Despite decreases in some crime categories, however, reports of rape were on the rise in October 2018, with 160 rapes reported — 8 more than in October 2017.

“Last month was a difficult time for our City as forces of hatred tried to divide and terrorize us. But, New Yorkers showed that we are resilient and will never stop celebrating our diversity,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio in a statement. “We are the safest big city in the country because the NYPD is as diverse as all 8.5 million New Yorkers. I want to thank all our officers for working with every community to fight crime and protect us from terror.”